vintagecar

Thanks for that info, this is my DD- and after reading on the FRPP cams I think they would be best.

I'm a shade tree mechanic- pulled a few engines, done some swaps, bit of everything. I haven;t really dove into internals though, other than seeing how they work, but not replacing anything. My neighbor has more of the internal work. If I were to put on a CAI and cams, but leave the tune up to a dyno tuner, could I drive my car on the stock tune to the dyno tuner?

shanec

Not sure about the CAI part of that question.

Ford claims the FRPP cam will work and provide gain without a tune. But I'm not sure that's true. Some here have had problems, mostly idle problems, with a tune-less FRPP. Some have had idle problems even after a tune with FRPP. Some have had no problems after a tune with FRPP. Apparently the tuner really has to know what he's doing.

SirKnightTG

What's weird is some with a bama tune have idle issues and some don't. Doug has done a lot of these so far so it's kind of weird to hear about issues with his tunes for these now.

EDIT: I'm referring to FRPP Hot Rods BTW.

Also, I 100% agree that the FRPP Hot Rods are better for a DD and Thumpr (or any comp cam) is better for racing due to where the power is at.

Rubrignitz

I'll jump in here to say that I had FRPP cams installed at a shop last week. I bet on Doug's tune from Bama and had idle issues. This was on a Friday and I couldn't get back in touch with him, however on Monday he sent me another tune that he said would fix my idle problems. Unfortunately I didn't have a chance to test it because I sent my car to San Antonio for a real dyno tune. (I didn't feel like playing hit-miss with the tune on my car!)

The guys that installed the cams did a before/after dyno run. The FRPP cams, without a tune, gained 28rwhp and 3rwtq. I'm hoping to pick up a bit more with the dyno tune.

And the powerband rolled ALL the way out to 6800rpm (he stopped @ 6800 due to the stock vtrain issues) with the dyno graphs right on top of each other until 5500 rpm where the stock cams died and the FRPP's kept on going!! I also didn't notice a seat of pants power/torque loss in normal sub-3k rpm driving to the dyno shop...

SirKnightTG

I bet doug's updated tune would have worked out. It has for several people already.

What would be interesting is after you get the car back, load doug's updated tune and see what happens. I'm quite interested in his update.

SirKnightTG

When I get my cams I may get not only an updated tune from Doug, but I may get one from Brenspeed just in case one of the tunes has issues and hope both do not. Hammeron's brenspeed email tune seemed to work well for him.

Rubrignitz

Hammer had a brenspeed tune for his FRPP's? I thought they didn't support these cams?

I wish Doug had gotten the tune back to me on Friday, I would have tried it. I just didn't feel good about someone giving me a tune and saying "try this to see how it works...".

Not only did my car idle badly but it smelled like pure gas coming out of the exhaust. If the updated tune fixed my idle issues but still didn't have the a/f right i would have been in the same boat. From what I've been seeing in posts, hammer and some of the other guys that have installed cams with mail order tunes ALL recently brought their cars to have them dyno-tuned.

Rubrignitz

I don't mean to jack this post but the other thing I noticed was that I was getting 21mpg on my way down to san antonio as opposed to the usual 25+. I hope I get better mileage than that once it's tuned properly.

To the original poster's question... this was my reasoning. You must have two specific tools to do the work yourself. A 3V-specific valve spring compressor and a ford "wedge" tool for the cam chains. A $250 expense. They charged me $500 for the install including the (required) two new cam phaser bolts. That was $250 (more than the cost if I did the work myself) well-spent. If you can find a place that will install the cams and dyno tune for you it's worth it to get it all done in one shot. JMO.

SirKnightTG

Brenspeed will tune for them, but the tune update won't be free since they don't sell them and there's no way to buy the cams from them b/c of that.

They'll also make tunes for a whipple even though they don't sell them.

hammeron

i did use a brenspeed email tune that incorporated
the whipple and hot rods.....it was generally a very
good tune, but i was running very lean.

for NA vehicles, i recommend bama, ithink doug
has by far the most experience so far....

mileage may be something that is going to
suffer.....driving home from my dyno tune,
i believe the best i could get was in the
mid 21's....i do have 3 different tunes though
and maybe one of the others, gets better
mileage.....

imo, don't do cams if your trying to squeeze every
mpg out of your car....